Gurriel’s struggles against lefties ‘a fluke’
SEATTLE — Yuli Gurriel’s platoon splits are drastically opposite of what one would expect. The righthanded-hitting Astros first baseman came into the weekend batting .318./.344/.523 in 176 at-bats against righthanders and .175/.209/.206 in 63 at-bats against lefthanders this season.
Astros manager A.J. Hinch chalks up the extent of Gurriel’s struggles against lefties this season to a small sample size.
“We faced a lot of lefties early in the year when he wasn’t at his best, so sometimes it just correlates to timing and when you see guys,” Hinch said. “He should be able to handle lefthanded pitching to an extreme.
“People pitch him in quite a bit. That angle coming in from a lefthander can give him trouble. But I don’t think it’s something that’s going to continue or something that’s going to be an extreme weakness of his on hitting lefthanded pitching versus righthanded pitching. He hits the ball really hard against bothsided pitchers.”
Each of Gurriel’s seven homers this season are against righties as are 15 of his 17 doubles. In his 130 major league at-bats last year, he batted .281/.323/.416 against righties (89 at-bats) and .220/.220/.317 against lefties (41 at-bats).
“He can handle the ball away from him,” Hinch said. “He’s a good breaking ball hitter. So things that he can do will help him against righties when the ball goes away from him. But I think (his extreme reverse splits are) just more of a fluke.”